Kate Hardy - Six More Hot Single Dads!

What was she up to?

Again, Isabelle forced herself to focus on the exercise at hand. She tapped her watch. “You still have nine more minutes to go, you know.”

“No, I don’t,” Anastasia protested. She swept her hand majestically toward the south wall and pointed to the clock. “Eight minutes have gone by since you said I had ten to go.”

“Ten working minutes,” Isabelle emphasized. “Not talking minutes.”

Anastasia pouted. “Anyone named ‘Legree’ in your family tree?” she asked. “As in Simon Leree? He was the evil plantation—”

“I know where the reference comes from, Anastasia,” Isabelle replied patiently. Humoring the woman, she answered, “And no, there’s no one with that surname in my family tree. Not to mention the fact that he was fictional.”

Anastasia smiled despite her impatience to get the exercise over with. The fact that Isabelle was familiar with a book written in the mid 1800s was, to her, a testament to the young woman being well-read and well-rounded. That made her all the more perfect for Brandon. There had to be some subtle way to make him see that.

But not too subtle, Anastasia silently emphasized. For the most part, too much subtlety was lost on men, her son included.

She decided to work a little on Isabelle. Surely the young woman wouldn’t object to a few honest questions. “But you do find my son attractive?”

The question ended on a note that implied she was waiting for nothing short of a positive answer. Isabelle debated whether it was worth the effort to tell the woman that this was not exactly the sort of subject that should be discussed, seeing as how Brandon was her son. It probably wasn’t worth the effort, she decided, and gave the only answer possible, since she had twenty-twenty vision.

“Yes, I find him attractive.” What woman in her right mind wouldn’t? His face was the stuff of dreams. Erotic dreams, she amended. “I would have to be blind not to.”

Anastasia bestowed an almost beatific smile on her. “He needs a good woman, you know.”

No, she didn’t know. And neither did Brandon, she was willing to bet. From the articles she’d read about him before she’d met him, Brandon seemed very happy with having a different woman on his arm for each occasion. Yesterday, it had been her. Tomorrow, it would be someone else.

Why that made her stomach into a knot she wouldn’t even explore. She’d known all this before she’d gone to bed with him. Before she even accepted the job. It was just the way that things were.

Out loud she said, “He seems very happy with his present lifestyle. Don’t turn your right leg out that far,” she coached. “You want to keep your gait equal to give your left leg enough time to catch up properly.”

“He isn’t, you know. Happy with his present lifestyle,” Anastasia explained when Isabelle looked at her quizzically. “Brandon’s the marrying kind. Unlike me, for him marriage was supposed to last forever. Part of him is still in shock dating back to when Victoria’s mother, Jean, walked out on him. Brandon had to beg her to have Victoria, you know,” she added, her voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper in case her granddaughter picked this moment to walk in. “Jean wanted to terminate her pregnancy the minute she knew for certain that she was expecting.”

No, she didn’t know that. It wasn’t any of her business to know, Isabelle thought. But even so, the knowledge of that one not-so-small fact, that Brandon had wanted his daughter from the moment she came into existence, made her heart open up a little more toward the man.

No longer even pretending to work her exercise, an immobile Anastasia shook her head. “Poor guy thought that when Jean held the baby in her arms, she’d come around. Well, she didn’t and I say he’s the luckier for it because she took her self-centered behind and ran off when Victoria was less than a month old.

“She did try to come back,” Anastasia told her, lowering her voice in case it carried. “Right after Brandon hit the New York Times bestseller list for the first time. He almost, almost forgave her, too,” the actress lamented. And then she smiled. “Until he realized that she didn’t think she’d done anything wrong. That and the private investigator’s report made up his mind for him and he turned her away.”

“Private investigator’s report?” Isabelle echoed, waiting for more details.

Anastasia nodded, looking very smug and pleased with herself. “I hired one to look into what my ex-daughter-in-law had been up to since she’d last darkened Brandon’s door. Quite the promiscuous little party girl, Jean was. Still is, probably.”

“Mother, you have to have more recent stories than that to entertain your physical therapist with.”

Both women nearly jumped, startled. Brandon stood in the gym’s doorway, having entered silently behind them.

With a dramatic intake of breath, Anastasia splayed a very heavily jeweled hand across her ample chest. “You shouldn’t sneak up on me like that, Brandon. You could have given me a heart attack,” she declared. Then her eyes narrowed ever so slightly. “How long have you been standing there?

“You know you don’t get heart attacks, Mother. You give them,” he told her with a knowing smile. “And as for how long I’ve been standing here listening, I’ll just leave that up to your fertile imagination.”

Indignant, Anastasia chided her son. “Brandon, you shouldn’t eavesdrop.”

“I wasn’t eavesdropping,” he countered. “I came by to ask Isabelle if she had plans for dinner tonight.”

“Oh, wait, I think I hear Victoria calling me,” Anastasia announced. She looked from Isabelle to him before continuing. “I’d better go and see what she wants.”

“Victoria must have a more powerful voice than I thought. She’s down the street, at Marisol’s house,” Brandon said, doing his best to suppress a smile. He only partially succeeded. “That’s her best friend,” he said for Isabelle’s benefit.

“I know. She told me,” Isabelle replied.

Somewhat shy at first, Brandon’s daughter had taken to her rather quickly, a fact that pleased her a great deal. She found the young girl refreshingly devoid of all the stereotypical angst and hang-ups associated with most girls her age. The twelve-year-old was really more of a young adult than an adolescent. In a way, Victoria reminded her a lot of herself.

Anastasia refused to be caught in a lie, even if everyone already knew that it was. This was no exception. “Still, I’d better go and check. I’m absolutely certain I just heard her.” Placing a hand on her son’s arm for balance, she shimmied the scarf off her thighs and gracefully stepped out of the bright, colorful circle. Finally regaining her mobility, the actress nodded at the scarf on the floor. “Be a dear and pick that up for Isabelle, will you, Brandon?”

With that, the woman swept out of the room, as regal as any queen.

“Your wish is my command, Mother,” he murmured good-naturedly, bending over to pick up the scarf. Straightening, he offered it back to Isabelle. “I’ll say one thing for my mother. She is nothing if not dramatically colorful.”

“I heard that.” Anastasia’s voice echoed back into the room despite the fact that she was no longer in his line of sight.

Seeming to address Isabelle, he raised his voice so that it would carry. “Among other things she has in common with the nocturnal creatures, she also has the hearing of a bat.”

This time, his mother prudently said nothing. There was no way she was about to acknowledge his very flippant remark.

Isabelle’s curiosity was getting the better of her. She supposed she could pretend that he hadn’t initially said anything, but then she might miss out on being with him again. And fleeting though it would, right now she didn’t want to pass up a single opportunity to spend some time with Brandon.